A WEEK WITH ANIMALS

A small fraction of you reading this post may know that on occasion, I work at an animal sanctuary to look after the animals when the owners are away on holiday. This week I have been doing that again but also house sitting and looking after their dogs, as well as all of the sanctuary animals. So because I haven’t been at home at all this week I didn’t have photos ready for the post I had planned. So I thought instead of stressing about not having the photos, I would change the post for this week and just share with you some photos of the animals in a bit of a follow me around type post like some people do as YouTube videos. I take absolutely hundreds of photos every time I’m here as I just cant help my self, they’re all so cute! I have no idea if anyone is interested in this kind of post but I like creating posts for myself that I can look back on otherwise these photos would just end up in my phone camera roll never to be seen again.

I have been posting lots of photos on my Instagram stories and I have had a few people comment on the animals especially the more exotic ones like the owls, and say that they are jealous of my job! I am so lucky to be able to have this opportunity and do this. I would love to have my own animal sanctuary one day in the country!

So because I am house sitting as well as looking after the animals I have to get up early every morning to feed the dogs. This has been a bit of a struggle for me as I love a good lie in and since I’m on summer break for uni I haven’t been out of bed before 9 in quite a few weeks! It was quite a shock to the system to begin with but now I think I’m used to it and in a routine. Once I have fed the dogs I then go and let the chickens out as pictured above. I feed them and let them roam free for the day.

Then I go down to the horses and goats and feed them their breakfast. I have to lock both of the horses in their stables before feeding the goats otherwise they will eat the goats breakfast too! I then give them some hay and fresh water.

Then I go over to the other two horses and lock one of them into his stable as he eats too much grass and can get laminitis. The other one is food aggressive and would steal the other horses food if one of them was not locked up! I give them some hay as well and fresh water then go over to the wildlife.

The number of animals that are at the sanctuary has decreased a lot over the past few years, they used to have ducks, disabled birds, owls and all sorts but now they only have a few owls, peacocks and one fox. Quite a few of them died of old age as they have been at the sanctuary for a number of years and it was just their time. I first feed the peacock and peahens, with corn, sweetcorn and a little bit of bread. One of the peahens had been sitting on five eggs and yesterday one of them hatched! So there is a tiny little peahen or peacock chick wondering round the enclosure now too!

Lastly I feed the fox but she is very shy and I have only seen her for a brief second this whole week, she lives in three joined enclosures and they all have loads of plants and tree cover so it is hard to spot her. The photo above is from a few years ago when she was much younger and less shy but I thought I’d include it anyway to show you all her beauty!

Then I come back to the house and do some revision! I don’t have exams or anything but I have turned into a mega swot and I’m getting started on work for next year! I also am trying to figure out what to do for my dissertation and get that organised but its taking ages as I’m not 100% sure on what I want to do. I do have an idea that my course manager suggested to me, which I think will be interesting but I am not to sure, I’ll have to keep researching things!

Then when it gets to 3pm I go and feed all of the animals again like I did in the morning. I also prepare the feed buckets for the horses and goats in an afternoon for the next day. Once I’m done there I am finished for the day with the sanctuary animals and I can do my own thing. I usually do some more revision, take the dogs for a walk, water the plants, feed the dogs, feed myself, lock the chickens in and then chill on an evening.

I have been here for a week so far, I am leaving tomorrow for a few days then coming back for another week on Wednesday as the owners go away again. I hope you’ve enjoyed this post in some way, seeing all of the cute animals, if not thats ok, it will act as a little diary type thing for me to look back on in the future! I’ll see you all again next week with another post, hopefully something more everyones cup of tea!